Chapter 3:
| Darby
| Geneva
| Gill
| Jamieson Faussett Brown
| Johnson
| Matthew Henry
| Matthew Henry Concise
| Wesley
| Index
| Bible Gateway |
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1 Corinthians Galatians
2 Corinthians 3
Verse 1. Do we begin again to recommend ourselves - Is it needful?
Have I nothing but my own word to recommend me? St. Paul
chiefly here intends himself; though not excluding Timotheus,
Titus, and Silvanus. Unless we need - As if he had said, Do I
indeed want such recommendation?
Verse
2. Ye are our recommendatory letter - More convincing than bare
words could be. Written on our hearts - Deeply engraven there,
and plainly legible to all around us.
Verse
3. Manifestly declared to be the letter of Christ - Which he has
formed and published to the world. Ministered by us - Whom he
has used herein as his instruments, therefore ye are our letter also.
Written not in tables of stone - Like the ten commandments. But
in the tender, living tables of their hearts - God having taken away
the hearts of stone and given them hearts of flesh.
Verse
4. Such trust have we in God - That is, we trust in God that this is
so.
Verse
5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves - So much as to think
one good thought; much less, to convert sinners.
Verse
6. Who also hath made us able ministers of the new covenant - Of
the new, evangelical dispensation. Not of the law, fitly called the
letter, from God's literally writing it on the two tables. But of the
Spirit - Of the gospel dispensation, which is written on the tables
of our hearts by the Spirit. For the letter - The law, the Mosaic
dispensation. Killeth - Seals in death those who still cleave to it.
But the Spirit - The gospel, conveying the Spirit to those who
receive it. Giveth life - Both spiritual and eternal: yea, if we
adhere to the literal sense even of the moral law, if we regard only
the precept and the sanction as they stand in themselves, not as
they lead us to Christ, they are doubtless a killing ordinance, and
bind us down under the sentence of death.
Verse
7. And if the ministration of death - That is, the Mosaic
dispensation, which proves such to those who prefer it to the
gospel, the most considerable part of which was engraven on
those two stones, was attended with so great glory.
Verse
8. The ministration of the Spirit - That is, the Christian
dispensation.
Verse
9. The ministration of condemnation - Such the Mosaic
dispensation proved to all the Jews who rejected the gospel
whereas through the gospel (hence called the ministration of
righteousness) God both imputed and imparted righteousness to
all believers. But how can the moral law (which alone was
engraven on stone) be the ministration of condemnation, if it
requires no more than a sincere obedience, such as is proportioned
to our infirm state? If this is sufficient to justify us, then the law
ceases to be a ministration of condemnation. It becomes (flatly
contrary to the apostle's doctrine) the ministration of
righteousness.
Verse
10. It hath no glory in this respect, because of the glory that
excelleth - That is, none in comparison of this more excellent
glory. The greater light swallows up the less.
Verse
11. That which remaineth - That dispensation which remains to
the end of the world; that spirit and life which remain for ever.
Verse
12. Having therefore this hope - Being fully persuaded of this.
Verse
13. And we do not act as Moses did, who put a veil over his face -
Which is to be understood with regard to his writings also. So that
the children of Israel could not look steadfastly to the end of that
dispensation which is now abolished - The end of this was Christ.
The whole Mosaic dispensation tended to, and terminated in, him;
but the Israelites had only a dim, wavering sight of him, of whom
Moses spake in an obscure, covert manner.
Verse
14. The same veil remaineth on their understanding unremoved -
Not so much as folded back, (so the word implies,) so as to admit
a little, glimmering light. On the public reading of the Old
Testament - The veil is not now on the face of Moses or of his
writings, but on the reading of them, and on the heart of them that
believe not. Which is taken away in Christ - That is, from the
heart of them that truly believe on him.
Verse
16. When it - Their heart. Shall turn to the Lord - To Christ, by
living faith. The veil is taken away - That very moment; and they
see, with the utmost clearness, how all the types and prophecies of
the law are fully accomplished in him.
Verse
17. Now the Lord - Christ is that Spirit of the law whereof I
speak, to which the letter was intended to lead. And where the
Spirit of the Lord, Christ, is, there is liberty - Not the veil, the
emblem of slavery. There is liberty from servile fear, liberty from
the guilt and from the power of sin, liberty to behold with open
face the glory of the Lord.
Verse
18. And, accordingly, all we that believe in him, beholding as in a
glass - In the mirror of the gospel. The glory of the Lord - His
glorious love. Are transformed into the same image - Into the
same love. From one degree of this glory to another, in a manner
worthy of his almighty Spirit. What a beautiful contrast is here!
Moses saw the glory of the Lord, and it rendered his face so
bright, that he covered it with a veil; Israel not being able to bear
the reflected light. We behold his glory in the glass of his word,
and our faces shine too; yet we veil them not, but diffuse the
lustre which is continually increasing, as we fix the eye of our
mind more and more steadfastly on his glory displayed in the
gospel.
Chapter 3:
| Darby
| Geneva
| Gill
| Jamieson Faussett Brown
| Johnson
| Matthew Henry
| Matthew Henry Concise
| Wesley
| Index
| Bible Gateway |
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1 Corinthians Galatians
This version of Wesley's Notes on the Bible is a derivative of an electronic version, Copyright 1997, by Sulu D. Kelley. All rights reserved. Used by permission. It may not be modified or used commercially without permission of Wesleyan Heritage Publishing and Sulu Kelley. A special thanks to Mr. Kelley and Wesleyan Heritage Publishing for permission to create and post this version of Wesley's Notes on the Bible.
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